SYSK Selects: How Monopoly Works

Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry Rowland, which makes the Stuff you Should Know. It's right. I got on the top hat and my cane, your monocle, my Monica to see a monocle. I thought it was not as Mr Peanut, Oh yeah, not Mr Monopoly. And I think Mr Pringle has a monocle too, Devan, No, he has a nastasy. Mr Monopoly doesn't have a monocle. Huh. I don't think so. Huh. You'd think we'd know, we do not, But I do know this. Mr Monopoly is

a nickname for that man. That's right. His born name is given name by his parents is rich Uncle penny Bags three names, so uncle would be his middle name. Yeah, well he even has a regular name too, not that I saw. Yeah, it is Um Millburn Pennybags. No. Yeah, there was a book UM published and this is one of those after the fact deals called the Monopoly Companion, and they named all the character characters on the board

Milbourne Pennybags. And then the jail guy is Jake, the jailbird, and the police officer and go to jail is it's I'll bet it Tyrus, isn't it Officer Edgar Mallory. I knew, really he just gets that. Yeah, that's pretty funny. We're talking about Monopoly, by the way. Oh yeah, this is not about anything else but Monopoly. No. And I was just remarking to you, sir, how I've never seen one of our This had more supplemental information than most shows

that we research. Yeah. I can explain why because this was written. There was a whole suite of UM game articles written like UM just how to play certain games. So it kind of came out in this mentality and of this is the game, and here's how we explain how to play it, and this article is done. Whereas Monopoly. It's like this is more like McDonald's or Twinkies or something like that. It's like a cultural cog. Yeah. I mean there's so much extra junk history. And I mean

you talk about the different versions, it's ridiculous. Milburne Penny Penny Banks. Yeah, And like I said, that was a post that he wasn't originally called that. This is I think Monopoly probably wanted to sell a little a little book or two. I'm sure they did, because if one thing we've learned about Parker Brothers and now has Bro is they love selling different versions of this game. Yeah, they do. They like licensing it all a lot of money.

Do they like making some changes here they're releasing a brand new game, but it's all still the same game and all of it. Um came from a left wing Quaker intellectual at the turn of last century. Yeah, it was. I'm saying that right, Yeah, sure, Okay, I think it sounds right. Uh. And it's interesting to me that the game of Monopoly, which is all about capitalism bankrupting or neighbor Yeah, was stolen. The game was stolen from a leftist intellectual Quaker. In the original version of the game,

it was to teach against monopolies and how they're bad. Right, so let's talk about this monopoly. Actually, if you trace it back to about the like the literal beginning of the twentieth century, Um, it's what's considered a folk game. There were a lot of people playing versions like this and cities all over the country. But again, they all shared some pretty common viewpoints. Uh. I guess you today you would kind of call them socialists, um, But for the most part they were um followers of a guy

named Henry George Georgis M. Yeah. He came up with this thing called Georgism, which was based on some other philosophies. But the idea of it is is that if you produce something through the through your own labor, your own work, you own that that should not be taxed. What should be taxes things that everybody owns. If somebody's taking something that belongs to everybody, say a parcel of land, technically

the land belongs everybody. Well, that was his no was that you shouldn't even be a landowner, Like, the whole concept of owning land to him was ridiculous. And that's based on this idea. The law of the commons which is around for centuries, if not millennia, and then um, once people started taking land, He's like, okay, well, if you're gonna own land, it belongs to everybody, so that should be taxed and then that tax will be given back to the community for the greater good. So that's

georgeis um. And that was kind of the philosophy that formed the basis of monopoly what was originally called the Landlord's Game, which was created by a lady named Lizzie Maggie m A g Y m A I E m A G I E almost Magpie without the pa, right, uh yeah, And she basically that was on her card, and she, uh, she came up with this, like you said to kind of teach um, so you could go and be a rich landowner and bankrupt other people and exploit the poor who need your help, um, who need

a decent place to stay, and you could see yourself like the evils of capitalism. But she actually came up with two sets of rules for the same game. One was where you got as rich as you could at the expense of everybody else. The other was a basically the community benefited. And you can kind of see that today in like these weird things like community chest, Like why would I want to, you know, pay into this pot. I don't care about the community like now it's a

bad thing. In her original version, it was a good thing, like the community one. And that was the basis of the whole thing. Yeah, which is really ironic, it is. Uh yeah, like you said, she created two versions and she said, Um, one of the quotes from her is it is a practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing, with all its usual outcomes and consequences. So you know, it's kind of the teach people lessons. Uh. And she had it stolen from her. She luckily, Lizzie

Maggie was smart enough to patent this game. Uh. It became just kind of a trendy thing. Again, like if you were into socialism at the time and you were on the East Coast, you probably hung out at a friend's house and and um played this game at some

point in some incarnation or another. It was really popular, like you said, like people made up some of their own rules, but it was I mean, if you look at the original Landlords game board, it looks a lot like the current Monopoly I mean similar at least yeah, And apparently a lot of the the rules that make the game a lot more enjoyable to day came from uh Lizzie's Quaker friends. Like, for example, um, the original

plots of land, we're up for auction for forbid. Quakers prefer silence, so they just put a fixed price on a piece of land so there wouldn't be a loud, obnoxious bidding war. Um. They also um instituted tokens, fun tokens before they're just boring pawns. Yeah, like household objects, which you know, that's why the thimble is in there, and originally the iron Yea, we'll get to those in

a minute, but um, I know it's pretty exciting. Uh. And then so this thing is being played and h Lizzie Maggie holds the patent, but she's not exactly like um cracking down on any kind of infringement. Really. No, Well, she pitched at the Parker Brothers and they said no, Yeah, so she just kind of went on doing her own thing. So there's another lady actually that figures into this UM lady named Ruth Hoskins, and she was one of the ones who caught on in the like Philadelphia Atlantic City

area with her Quaker friends. Uh, two of them in particular, Jessie and Eugene Rayford. Uh. And they are the ones who changed some of the rules to make it look more like the monopoly we know. They taught it to a friend, uh named Todd, and Todd taught it to his friend named Charles dare Row. And that's where the story takes a kind of a CD turn. Well, actually that's where the Parker Brothers official version begins. Ironically things turned CD. Parker Brothers is like, hey, this is where

our story begins. Yeah. The inventor of Monopoly, Charles Darrow, right, so he was like a radiator salesman during the depression. This is the thirties, right, Yeah, I mean it was ironically again during the Depression, this game really caught hold. Well I supposedly that's what caught the Parker Brothers attention was that this guy came to came to him, came to them to sell him this game which he had stolen. Yeah.

Apparently he didn't innovate it at all. He kind of just copied it and packaged it right, and said, hey, what do you think of this? And the Parker Brothers said, we don't think too much of it, like, how does the game end? We don't know what's going on here, so let's just um, you just go your own way. So Charles Darrow went off and started selling it at this Wannamaker's apartment store in Philadelphia without pattenting it right, and um, the Parker brothers said, you know what, it's

the depression. Can you believe it. We're not going to have any kind of economic woes like this for another seventy eighty years. And this guy is selling these things like hot cakes. You know what, sir, we will buy your idea from you. And Charles Darrow apparently said, well, that's great. Give me the money first and then I'll tell you the second part of the story. And they gave him a bag of money with a dollar sign on it, much like the ones that um rich uncle

Penny bags likes. And he said, okay, um, we also need to buy the patent off from this lady named Lizzie Maggie. Yeah, which they did. Um, the game was still stolen. I say, even though that they eventually did pay her money, but part of the deal was, they said, um, they they agreed to buy her patent and said, you know what, we're gonna we'll sell a few of your other game ideas too. None of those ever went anywhere, and she was sort of lost to history except for

people who do a little bit of digging. Yeah, and we actually have a guy named Ralph to thank for doing that digging initially. We'll talk about him later. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, because he's the one who came up with the unofficial history and like really tracked it down. Well, there's a lot of teasers in this one so far. So Um, the Parker brothers now in the game, and uh, it becomes a huge hit virtually off the bat. In the thirties is when they bought it and started really

printing it. Yeah, and the game is based on Atlantic City. Uh, those are the properties and that's because that was the area where it became popular. But um, this excellent New York Times article you sent, uh, what's the name of it, Monopoly Goes Corporate. Yeah, it was written by what's what's the lady's name? Mary Pillin. She is a monopoly expert. There's a lot of those out there, I've learned. She well, she wrote a lot of the articles you'll find. Oh really, yeah,

she's well. She pointed out that it's interesting that it mirrored sort of the the cartography of the day in Atlantic City, like Boardwalk was clearly like a rich area the Baltic and Mediterranean. The cheapest properties were in African American neighborhoods. There was a reading railroad that transferred people between Philly and Atlantic City. And little known fact for our friends in the gay community, New York Avenue was

one of the earliest gay scenes in the country. So buy that one up and support support the lb GT community. That's if you're playing monopoly. Yeah, that's what I would do. And maybe just you know, don't charge anybody when they land, just be like, this is the party place exactly. And Marvin Gardens apparently is misspelled yeah E instead of an eye or eye instead of an E. Yeah, on the board it's an eye, right, It's supposed to be an E. Yeah. There's a lot of Monopoly facts dropping all around us

right now. I know it's raining symbols. Well, now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from Josh PM Chuck. It's stuff you should know, all right, All right, So we were just talking about Atlantic City. Um, I guess it's we can go ahead and point out now that there are hundreds of versions of Monopoly out there now, one for your hometown, probably one for your favorite sports team. I have personally my version as a Star Wars Monopoly, which

is pretty fun. Um yeah, I guess Hesbro's like, you've got some money, sure you can license this monopoly game. Go ahead. There's a Simpsons Monopoly. I haven't played it though, and not in addition to the um licensed versions that you can fine like everywhere, they also have like official versions to like there's a U S version, there's a UK version, there's um a there's a new version that's called Monopoly here And now what does that even mean?

Super corporate? Is this the corporate one? Yeah? Okay, it's uh it's like everything is multiplied by I think a thousand, so the solar amounts are way higher. Is this one where they replaced the uh, the railroads are replaced by airports? Is this one where they replaced corporations for all the property? So like McDonald's and Sony and yeah, god, who would

want to play that? Some people? Do? You know? Yeah? Yeah? Um, I mean I'm not a purist because I had the Star Wars version, but I just it's no fun to me to play as paramount pictures and right to buy the McDonald's property. Yeah, that's just me. Um. So there are a bunch of different versions, but the one we're going to talk about, what's just talking about, the the normal version with the two thousand eight rules. Yeah, and

there's actually coming soon, um later this year. There you can go online at my Monopoly and you can design your own board, is that right, and do like your own neighborhood and then they will make it for you. And I think it's like fifty bucks or something. Wow, money bags, you can I'm not gonna do it. Got the East Lake, but I was. I was talking to whoever went and got it. Yeah, rich uncle, rich penny bags. That's what you should have said, rich uncle, penny bag, pennybags.

This sounds not not that wealthy. Well, actually I have a bag of pennies on me right now. He Forbes has their silly fictional fifteen list of fictional characters wealth and he um in two thousand thirteen was number is uh stars declined to m huh, guess who the first the richest fictional character is the Incredible Hulk. No, he was not rich Scrooge McDuck. Oh yeah, well dude, he had that gold vault apparently sixty five billion. Uh. Number two was smiling, which I thought it was kind of

silly smile from like the rings. It's a dragon. I think I had like a bunch of gold. Uh. Carlisle Cullen number three, Tony Stark four, Charles Foster Kane number five. Who's number three? Carlisle Cullen from Twilight? Who's that? He was the dad vampire dad of the vampire family. Um, and he's been alive forever, so I guess he just keeps accumulating. Well. Bruce Wayne Ritchie Rich, Christian Gray Ritchie Rich.

I forgot about him. He's number seven. He had a robot made and a crazy like a weird scientists friend. Didn't he sure like a Richie rich robot of himself. I think he had that too, But no, it was made. Was a robot, wasn't it? It was the Jetsons. No, he had to Uh. I thought Monty Burns at number ten was pretty good. Oh yeah, that's going. Although I would guess Mr Monopoly would be wealthier than Monty Burns. But and they put it out each year and it's dumb.

Can we just admit that I was thrilled by it. We just spent three minutes on it. Yeah, well that's true. Okay, So Chuckers, you want to talk about the the rules of the game again, two eight rules if you are a Monopoly purist and like, I'm sorry, that's just what we're going with. Yeah, well, let's talk about the game board itself. Just so if you haven't played it, I'm surprised because I think like a billion people have played

the game. Um, but if you haven't, when you get your Monopoly game, you're gonna open it up and you're gonna have a board with all these different properties in a square. Uh, you have two dice twelve they call them tokens. That's not the right amount either, is it. No, there's eight. Yeah. I don't understand where they got twelve from unless they're counting ones that maybe were retired or something like that. But when you open the box, there's

only eight. There, there's a can we go over, there's a wheelbarrow, Scottie dog, top hat, a cat which replaced the iron in two thousand thirteen, there's a big, big two do because Parker Brothers has bro was like, we haven't made a lot of money off of this for a couple of months, so let's just do something. Well, they let people vote at least, which is kind of cool, right, but it was also did you see the other ones that they were voting for. It's like a robot, like

Richie Richards a guitar. They didn't they didn't make the cut though. No, they got voted out and the cat got voted in. The iron got booted. Yeah, it only got eight percent of the vote. There's the classic shoe of course, or boot, which is modeled after a nineteen thirties working shoe, and I think they've kept it the same. Yeah, that's one of the original ones. The Scottie Dog was not one of the originals that came in the fifties. Yeah, and I think that was supposed to be the companion

of uh millburn money. Denny is there right, Denny bags should be cash bags, fat stacks, stacks. There was a cannon which has since been retired. Yeah, and if they thought it was two militaries, well the cannon and the battleship. Yeah, they were from a failed game called Conflict, and they were like, well, we got all these pieces, so let's just throw them in Monopoly for now. Right. It's pretty smart. But they faced the cannon out because it's just too

overtly violent. Um, it just says with any without any fanfare or vote or campaign. So probably, yeah, it would be my guess if it's hush hush, yeah, it's probably because of violence. There's a conspiracy of foot. There's the race car. Yeah, every little kid's favorite, which apparently had a number three on the side for a little while. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, they are in hart I guess so. Uh, or purse has been retired. Yeah, the

rocking horse was retired. Yep, the lantern was retired. Oh yeah, I'm doing my best ben bowling pressing. Did you do did you get wheelbarrow in there yet? I think I know, yes I did. It was the first one I said, could you say top hat? Yeah? That was always my favorite. Actually, I I don't remember what my favorite was. It fit on my pinking and I used to draw faces. Uh the horse and rider which is retired, which I didn't know. That's one of the best pieces to me. What you

didn't know is retired. Now yeah, I'm just kind of sad. Yeah, and now there and the sack of money was retired as well, the sack of money in a purse. Those are a little similar. Yeah. The cat come on, yeah, cat people, that's exactly right. I guarantee that's why they got cat voted in. And I am a cat person, you know, and even you think it's stupid, exactly. So those are the tokens. Some of those tokens that we mentioned you're going to find in the two thousand and

eight set. Yeah, and that is your piece. That is what represents you in the game. Again for the three people who have never played Monopoly, right, yeah, because supposedly, um, at least as far as Hasbro calculates, over one billion people have played Monopoly, and frankly, I'm surprised as that low. It sounds like an old number. Yeah. Um, okay, So you've got the box open, you get the board, you got two dice, you got the tokens, thirty two houses

in twelve hotels, uh, sixteen chance cards, sixteen community Chess cards. Yeah, a title D card for each property. It's got the information on it, like how much it costs to purchase how much rent is depending on how many houses or hotels you have on it, Yeah, what the mortgage value is worth, that's right. Um, and then you've got your your play money, your monopoly money, which man, I think that's where it grabs kids because and they even pointed out in this article that's um, it's kind of the

first time a lot of kids have money to play with. Yeah, especially the bill wants. Oh man, that gold bill I always thought was orange? Is it gold? Uh? Yeah, one's definitely golden rod like yellow. But I remember was, Yeah, I guess gold is a way to go. Uh see, I was a cash hoarder, which is no way to win a monopoly. No. I thought it was can't save. No. I just thought that just figures for me though, Like

you gotta spend money to make money. Yeah, I was like, look at all this cash that I will soon be paying to everyone else. Just keep wandering off from the table and try to buy stuff with it. Did not work. So Chuck, you've got the board laid out, and if you count them, if you're that kind of person, yeah, you're going to find that there's forty squares. That's right. I believe twenty two of which are um no, twenty eight of which can be purchased. Yeah, twenty two our properties.

You've got your your electric company and water works. Yeah, sucker's bet. And then you've got the four railroads. Four railroads, So that's that's right. There are others that you can't buy. So, for example, there's a luxury tax square. Yeah, you gotta pay what a hundred dollars when you land on that, I believe, so just right out of just right out of your pocket. There's an income tax square. Yeah, no good.

There's the go square, which is where you start, and then when you come back around you collect two hundred dollars, which is in Monopoly called your salary. That's right. I never knew that. I didn't either. And there's a lot

of rules in here. Uh. And then I guess it's a good time to point out Monopoly is one of those games where house rules are highly encouraged, uh, and a lot of the fun of the game, and in fact, to make more money Monopoly this year had are incorporating the top house rules as voted on by fans as official rules for this one verse in a seventy dollar hardback book. I don't see why a lot of people were in since they were like, we've no one plays by the real rules anyway, so why bother packaging it

and selling it? And they went, I think you just said the word sell. Someone say sell. There in lies the answer. So you've got oh, there's and so there's forty squares, but there's actually forty one places you can go to on the board because jail is divided into two squares. That right, you got the jail with the jailbird. What's his name? Uh, I can't remember, Johnny Jailbird or something, Jake the jailbird, right, okay, which is where Jake the

jailbird is. And then you've got the lower part of it. Um, it's just visiting. Yeah, if you want to visit Jake, give him a bunt cake with the nail filing at the very old school, or a monopoly set with um, maybe a map with an escape route embedded in it. Hey, that sounds familiar. Yeah, POWs and World War two were given such monopoly sets, true, which is strange to Maybe it's like where the nazis allowing monopoly sets to be delivered to POWs. Is that what I'm seeing here? Maybe

it's the Burmese. I mean, you've seen the like The Great Escape, on those those the war prison camps in World War Two. It seemed like a lot of them. They let him like garden and they were kind of chummy with him. He saw Hoggan's heroes. I saw Hoggan's heroes and didn't put a lot of stock into it. Yeah, but yeah, no, I just figured it played soccer. Maybe the Japanese or the Burmese or the the Italians. I could see like saying like, yeah, he bring the monopoly

and who cares? But the Nazis, I would think, would I just don't see that. Yeah, I'm not saying it was a walk in the park, but I think from the depiction and uh like, like I said, like the Great Escape, it's not like Vietnam prison camp. Oh yeah, you know, like they weren't playing soccer or or Monopoly. They were playing Survive Another Day that game. Um, I'm not making line of that, by the way. Oh I didn't think you were. And I'm basing everything on more movies,

so I'm probably wrong. And I've seen Uncommon Valor. That was a good movie. That was a great movie. It doesn't age well though, really remember that menu with the gun silhouettes on it. Oh yeah, and when you're twelves, you're like, oh my god. Yeah, it's like I would buy that one in that one. Um. All right, so where were we we were talking about? Um, the board itself. Yes, in the different squares, Yes, there are the cards that you can draw as well, Community chest and chance squares.

When you land on these, you draw a card from one of those two piles, and there are various things in there, like you want to fashion modeling contest you get ten dollars, and their dog show one in there too. I think there's probably a dog show. And there's also you know, you have street repairs or um those are big time general repairs and that's based on your properties that you ownson. They can can getch you pretty hard. Yeah. Yeah,

like in real life. That's right, you know. Um, And that's funny because the monopoly what was her name, Lizzie Maggie In an interview, um, she gave with some leftist magazine at the time. Um, she said she basically called the thing the Game of Life. Yeah, that was already taken out. I don't know, was it. Yeah, that was that's around since the like Midreds. I thought she was being pressing it. Now she was being a glib she was she was making a pop culture reference for the

time exactly. But did you know apparently there used to be a square on the Game of Life board for suicide. Really it was the way you could go. I never really played that. I think I played it a couple of times. I never did either. I always thought it was kind of like you get the whole family in the car and it's like whatever. Yeah, we we did um. I mean we weren't the biggest game players as families, but we did Monopoly some in Yatsi was a big one,

great that I still enjoyed today. How to Love Yatsie. Yeah. We also played this game called Bull, and it was like a stock trading game with cards. And it's just now occurring to me that all these games are just teaching you about life. Yeah, it's like real monopolies, nothing but real estate. Uh, the game of Life is everything. This game Bull was about the stock market. Sorry, it was about um sarcastic. Sorry because you had to say it like a jerk. Candy Land, we know what that's

all about. Yeah, drugs, right, probably shoots and ladders tell you to stay away from snakes. Yeah. Operation taught you how to be a doctor. Oh yeah, that's right, that's where I got my m D. And then, of course, uh, battleship taught you how to be a warmonger. So to risk can take great pride. Risk taught you to be the Antichrist. Yeah, we should do what There is an article on risk I saw. I looked it over. It didn't seem as as interesting as this one. Yeah. I

don't know if the history is as interesting. And I mean, isn't that what what's interesting about any game, the history of it? Yeah? I think so. So. Um, let's talk about the rules, dude. Okay, let's start at the beginning. We'll start it. Go go is where you start, and that's where you, like you said, you collect the two hundred every time you land on it or pass it. Sometimes house rules, Uh you get four hundred for actually landing on it and only two hundred for passing it.

We never good. But free parking is where we had house rules. Um, that is a space on the corner of the board where you supposedly for the official rules, don't do anything. Yeah, there's nothing, it's just a space. But what we did was we donated all the collected taxes and fees and put it under free parking, and if you land on that, that was like a lottery win. Oh yeah, and a lot of people play that. Think I've heard of that one before. I liked it because

it allows you more money, which is my favorite thing. Cash. It's a latto, yeah exactly. Uh, we got ahead of ourselves. Let's just start at the real beginning. So everybody sits down at the table. Yeah, maybecause somebody, yeah, somebody gets a drink. Maybe you have to wait because somebody has to go to the bathroom. So you're all sitting there quietly.

And then when everybody's finally at the table, you guys select a banker, and the banker distributes the monopoly money to each player to five hundreds, to fifties, six twenties, and five tens, five fives and five ones, seen hundred dollars. And the goal of the game that we are getting to here at thirty minutes in is to bankrupt all of your family and friends. That's the whole point pretty much. Um. Some people put a time limit because this game can

go on forever. Um and other people say no, it's got a you gotta finish it by bankrupting everyone or until the last person is like, I give ease, I've got eight dollars. I hate this game. Yeah, that's usually me and Emily's usually has her foot on my throat. Oh yeah, yeah. We played two person Monopoly, which is just not fun. Yeah, because you know one of you is gonna lose. No, that's not why. It's just it's a game that's more fun with more people. I think, Yeah,

I got it. Yeah, um so okay, so everybody's got fifteen bucks. You roll the dice to see who goes first. Whoever rolls the highest goes first. Classic. Then you roll both die and you start moving from the ghost square and you go clockwise around the board. And when you land on a property this I didn't know, which is a kind of a basic rule, I guess, but I never played it this way. When you land on a property, you have the option to buy it. I knew that part.

But if you decline to buy it, then the then the property goes up for auction. I've never not only have I never played it the way, I've never heard of anyone playing it. Okay, so it's not just me, not just you, all right, So, uh, I guess the during an auction, not only the person, not only everybody else, but the banker and the person who declined to buy it can bid on it, which didn't make sense unless you're trying to get it for lower because can't you

start the bidding at wherever? Yes, you can start the bidding anywhere you want, so you could consumably get it for lower. And if you're playing against somebody who declines to buy something and then starts bidding on a lower price, keep an eye on that person. That's a shark to win. Yeah. Uh yeah, I hate that rule because to me, it's just like, what's the point and rolling and landing on something? I guess right, a first refusal But yeah, I don't know.

I don't like it now. And plus the Quakers were like, we specifically put a price on these things so there wouldn't be a lot of yelling. Yeah, we don't like yelling. Uh. They had another game to follow called the quiet roof raising ceremony. Those are not Quakers, that was the Amish. They're different. Don't you think Quakers raise some roof? Yeah?

They do. Ain't no party like a Quaker party. All right, So let's say you buy all of the properties that you know they're they're divided into different colors, like there's three green around you know, green ones, orange ones, blue ones, light blue. Um, if you buy all of the properties that are tied together by a single color, then you have what's called a monopoly. And that means you can then charge double rent, although we never do that. We just keep it single rent. And you now have the

option to buy houses. And then once you have enough houses I think three, you can then buy a hotel. Right, and let's call improvements. You're improving your land. And once you start to do improvements, um, things change a little bit. Not only can you start making more money, but it's actually harder to mortgage your properties if you are if you find yourself in debt, right, because this is this

is how crazy complicated it is. Like I don't think I was ever paying that much attention to monopoly that I ever mortgaged a piece of land. Really, I think it's like it sorry to get into debt or whatever. I was just like I'm done. Um, But apparently so if you find yourself indebted, and let's say you have a monopoly, and um, you want to mortgage, you can mortgage just one of the spots, right, But to do so, let's say you have a hotel, um on the that

piece of land that you're mortgaging. You first have to sell the hotel back to the bank at half price, and then you can mortgage the land. You're still I think, are you collecting rent on that land or doesn't go right to the bank. Now that's where, um, you just turn the card over and it's just you still technically own it, but you can't collect any rents on it. But you can't collect rent and everything on the other two pieces of property or the other one, depending on

which one you own. I don't know, really you can't. I looked it up. So that doesn't bust up the monopoly, No it doesn't, Okay, so you still own the monopoly. It's just that that one is mortgaged, and then to get it back you have to pay the bank the mortgage plus ten percent. Right. And this is where you can get silly with your house rules if you want. Yeah, you know, like as far as mortgaging and stuff like that, because supposedly it's a rule to where you can't Um.

The only thing that is not allowed as a personal loan, and I did all kinds of personal loaning because I was a Mr. Catch. What were your your interest rates? I don't remember. Did you break any usury laws? No? That was a kid, so it was it was probably just like just pay me back whenever ten percent or something. I guess I'm not the right I'm not enough of a You're not the stark capitalin though. You're not the one who like declines to buy something so you can

bid on at the lower price. I'm playing candy Land. I loved candy Land. Actually I never played that. It was a great game. Was it because of the art? It was just crazy. It was beautiful stuff. And then nowadays you look at the candy Land point and you're like, poor kids, Yeah, they don't know what they're missing. I just got a ticket to ride game that I haven't played yet. Have you heard of that one? It was a German game that's like one game of the year.

It's a train train game, like you established train routes between cities. Um, but it's supposedly like it sounds like, really that's fun, but it's supposedly great. I just blooded tire. Did you at the thought of it. Yeah, it does sound pretty bad, but no, it's it's it's one game in the year. Why those Germans and watch people Ticket to Ride enthusiasts will be like, dude, it's the best ever I've heard. Like German game night is like a thing. Now, Yeah,

I think they're a little more heavy. Is that what it is? I think? So this seems like I read over the rules the other night just so I would know what to do. And because you've got to like the purchase over the game has to be the game explainer as well. Right, you have to listen to craftwork quality you play. Yeah, well you don't have to, but it helps house rules. Yeah, so, um, I guess we oh, and we said you you can do anything but give

personal loans, right, that's what the official rules stays. So like you can I can buy from you on the side or something like that, or you and hold something up for auction, whatever anybody's doing. Yeah, and we always played where you had to do that when it was your turn, and that that would take your turn as well. Yeah. Um, but again, the whole point is is to be the person who owns the most stuff, So that you can

bankrupt all of your family and friends. And I mean, those are the rules, but there's actually strategy to it, and people pay a lot of attention to this. You know, there's a Monopoly World Championship hopefully every four years, although it's been The last one was in two thousand nine, so we're due an American lawyer one right in two thousand nine. And no, I think it was a Swede or a man. Maybe he was the North American, that's what he was, the North American champelon. Yeah, and he

represented the US and the World Championships. It sounds so silly. Yeah, well he uh he used the iron but yeah, yeah, I think the American used the thimble. Gotcha. He just laughed. She was like, really, that's a that's a fact that people need. Well, we're trying to really appeal to the purists here too. We trt everybody to be engaged. Well, now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from Josh PM chuck

it stuff you should know, all right, okay, Chucker. So again, the point bankrupt everybody, But there's like techniques that you can use to more efficiently bankrupt people like the the overall the best strategy. The basic strategy is to buy everything every chance you have. Yeah, I mean I looked up.

There's a lot of different people's uh strategies and opinions online. Um, I did find this one from a guy, and that was his strategy is by everything, it doesn't matter what it is, even the suckers bet the electric company and the water works. Yeah, which I don't pay off, really, he said, by it all and uh, and never have more than a hundred dollars in cash is his rule. He says the number one people must mistake people make is hoarding cash like I did. Yeah, you're making the

number one mistake, that's right. Uh. And he says that, Um, by everything, and do whatever it takes to get a monopoly, even a bad one, like he will trade to get a bad monopoly and give someone a good monopoly, even as long as he gets the monopoly. And he says it's fine because then you know, you two will probably take out everyone else. Uh. The point is just to get a monopoly and improve it as fast as you can.

So supposedly, though, UM, a general rule of thumb among like hardcore monopoly players is that while you're improving your monopoly your properties by adding houses or whatever, you want to stop at three houses because the jump from the third house to the hotel. Yeah, is financially it doesn't pay off. Usually it's over improvement. Yeah, just like in your home, Like, don't build that eighty thousand dollar kitchen because you're not gonna get your money back on that.

So three three houses, this guy doesn't subscribe to that. He buys everything and puts hotels on it. Yeah, he says, as first as he get as soon as he gets his first monopoly, he mortgages everything else to get cash back and then uses that cash to improve, which I thought was a little risky. Yeah, a couple of bad roles. I mean, it's a game of strategy, but the end of the day, you're rolling dice, and so it is

very much a game of chance. I'll be that guy feels like he's on the back of a pegasus though the whole game, like he's just thrilled. He claims to have won a game in twelve minutes one time, which I thought was shooting his own horn a bit. Yeah, sure, um, but real regular strategy. You're right, they say three houses is the max you should go. Um, and then there's also some that you should avoid. Even though it seemed like very tempting. We already said the electric company and

the water company, the utilities. They Um, the most you can get for rent from landing on it was ten times a roll of the dice, which is a hundred and twenty bucks. But it could be as low as twenty dollars. So I mean, this guy would probably say, well, hey, it was worth it, Like I still own them and I'm still making money if somebody lands on them. But a lot of Again, the monopoly purists say just stay away from him, And you also may want to stay

away from the most expensive ones boardwalk in park Place. Yeah, they're they're only two of them, and um, they just don't get landed on very much. Yeah, so think about it right out of the gate when you're thinking of probabilities. Um, the fact that there's two of these properties rather than three means that you are another player is less likely to land on your popoly because there's three or two instead of three. So that's one problem. The other problem

is placement. Where they are. They're right after, um, go right before, right before. Yeah, So it's at the end of the board essentially. No, I'm sorry, they're right before jail. No, they're right before go, They're right before Okay. So that means that most most players are going to well, they're going to pass them for sure whenever they hit that um go directly to go exactly. Yeah. Um, So that means that your your monopoly is going to be passed over.

The likelihood of making your money back recouping it, especially if they're improved to the hilt like a really fancy hotel, means that a lot of money. Yeah. You you've probably sunk a lot of money unwisely into those You want to go for some other ones, Yeah, supposedly, and there are people that have done Uh. There was this one guy.

If you really want to get into monopoly, this dude, I don't even know his name, but just look up probabilities in the game of Monopoly and Scientific America in the mid nineties at article that talked about probabilities of landing on different spaces, but they excluded um, community chest

and chance and being sent to jail. So this guy said, I took all of that and included everything, and he has a statistical charts long term probabilities for ending up on each square, expected income per opponent role, average income per role, expect a number of opponent role to recoup incremental costs, UH to recoup mortgages. So it's the name of his website. By the way, his monopoly was fun dot com. It totally should be um, but um. If you just want to do some basic probabilities, the orange

properties are landed on more than anyone else. Yes, and why chuck because they are after jail. Yeah, six eight and nine spaces after jail. Yeah. So if you get sent to jail, which is going to happen at some point. We actually we didn't talk about jail. We'll talk about that then you uh yeah, chances are you're gonna hit one of those orange squares on your way out of jail. Yeah, because you're rolling with two dice, so you're much more likely to roll like a six eight or a nine

than you are like a two or three or a one. Yeah, it's not even possible to roll at one. Try it. You can't. You can't unless you eat one of the dice, and in which case, unless it's a house rule, everybody's gonna yell at you and have to wait around until you poop it out to keep playing. Actually, our rule was you had to roll the child in what the child? Who ate the dice? Oh yeah, up, all right, So jail um is in the corner of the board and you can there are a few different ways you can

go there. You can draw a go to jail card. You can throw three doubles in a row and go to jail. Yeah, which I never understood because that's a good thing, I guess, but it's also the sign of the devil. So that's why you have to go to jail for a little while to be clients. Or there's a square or march to go to jail, and you can land on that and go to jail. You can also get out in three ways. You can have that get out of Jail free card. If you draw that,

you can hold onto it. We could sell it, although I think that's a house rule. You could sell it to a friend or enemy, uh, whoever, whoever had the most cash, right exactly. Uh. And then you basically the other ways to roll to either pay your way out for with fifty bucks or to roll your way out. And the way we played it was each turn you had one chance to roll your way out of jail

rolling doubles. Rolling doubles, right, yeah, um, and then if you under official rules, if you don't roll doubles for three consecutive turns, like you get three consecutive chances to roll doubles, and if you don't on any of those turns, then you have to pay fifty bucks to get out of jail. We just played where you just got out and you didn't have to pay. Well, then you guys weren't following the rules. I told you the house rules.

House rules. So there's actually a strategy to jail. Yeah. Um, if you go to jail early on in the game, do you want to pay your fifty bucks to get out? Immediately? Just pay the fifty bucks because then you can keep going around the board and there's more stuff available to buy. But later in the game you want to just kind of hang out in jail. Yeah, Like Josh has bought all the Orange spaces and you've got hotels on each one, So I'm thinking I might be good to sit in

jail for a few rounds. Yeah, because you can still collect rent on your properties, but the fact that you're in jail keeps you off of my properties. Yeah, and all another Bryant rule we played where when you were

in jail you could not collect any rents. Yeah, I mean that makes sense, but according to official rules, you just make as much money as you want there, and apparently in jail you can officially you can also buy and sell properties and improve your in collect rent and build hotels and houses, which I thought, I don't know if you're in jail, kind of lose that, right. It seems like in real jail that's the way it is. No, it's not in the house and being jail. I guess

that's true. And technically you could probably charge rent to someone. You could sub let it, like I'm gonna be gone for three to six. No, it's true. But what happens when this roster breaks trying to get let out of jail to go fix it? They're not gonna let you do that. It's very funny, but it's true too. Uh. Probability experts also say you get a good return on buying all of the railroads because they're pretty cheap. There's one on each side, and once you have each, once

you own all of them. Um, they're two hundred dollars in rent, So that's not too bad, not too shabby, but to me, and monopoly is the reason monopolies are valuable, but is because they're in a row, whereas the railroads are spaced out. And our friend, the strategist who thinks he uh invented the game says, but what you have to remember is none of these strategies matter because you're playing.

It's a game of people in personalities. So he's that you gotta sit back and watch the different personalities emerge and then you manipulate that like the cash hoarder versus the shark. And uh, he's like, you're really playing against people. Man, that's interesting, I thought. So okay, So let's talk about another friend, an economist friend. His name is Ralph Ant spok Yes, and he back in the seventies had a

game called anti Monopoly. Yeah, he was an econ professor at San Francisco State and um, like made his own real game. Like he didn't just like draw it up on paper, Like, he started a little small business and manufactured it. Apparently sold about two thousand copies of it, like right out of the gate, like it just hit a nerve. Again. It was called anti Monopoly. And the whole point of it was to break up monopolies rather

than build monopolies. Yeah, at the beginning of the game is essentially the end of a regular game, Like everyone starts off with monopolies. Uh. And instead of real estate and utilities um and anti monopoly, they had their individual businesses that have been brought under a single ownership. And you take the role of federal caseworker and bring indictments against monopolized businesses. In order to turn return the board to a free market system. You have to wear sensible shoes.

It sounds awesome. Yeah. Well, and he came up with this because he was trying to apparently explain to his son what was wrong and bad about monopolies and I suspect capitalism to a certain extent, and he came up with this game instead, like I said, sold a substantial amount two d copies of a game, especially back in

the seventies that was pretty good as a start up. Yeah, you know, And it caught Parker Brothers attention enough that they sent him a cease and desist letter, took him to court, got a court order for him to hand over his like thirty seven thousand copies that he had in his warehouse, and um they Parker Brothers went and unceremoniously buried him in a landfill in Minnesota. So UM, Ralph didn't cott into this very much. He didn't like that.

He doesn't like to be pushed around. I get the impression. No, I mean, a guy who makes anti Monopoly is not gonna cave in the courts initially, and he did so,

like very much, at his own financial detriment. He had a very expensive team of lawyers at first UM and spent quite a bit of money fighting Parker Brothers for the right to use anti Monopoly, and UM what it wasn't really going anywhere, and he was losing a lot of money, so he started to do legwork himself, found a lawyer friend UM who worked on the cheap for UM, and that's when things started taking off. Yeah, I mean, he basically uncovered the lie that it was invented by

Charles Darrow. He found out that the game was essentially in the public domain, or should have been, and UM went all the way to the Supreme Court and one yeah, he won at the Supreme Court. This ecoun professor came up with a game called anti Monopoly one in the Supreme Court won the right to name his game anti Monopoly. Yeah, I mean he he deposed the the two Quakers that were friends of Hoskins. They were old at that point.

They took the stand. Um. He deposed the CEO of Parker Brothers, and he took the stand and it had to admit under oath like, yeah, we did kind of steal it. Nice the idea from that lady Um after all. And so, as Ralph says, the the whole point to him was for this true story, the true origins of monopoly and how it came about, the whole point of it originally could still be told openly that what he said um could be bought at any price. In his opinion,

that's right, So way to go, Ralph. Yeah, he wrote a book awkwardly titled The Billion Dollar Monopoly in swindle Colin during a David and Goliath battle, Anti Monopoly uncovers the secret history of Monopoly. That's a little clunky, a little clunky, but it's still around. Um. In there was a new version called anti Monopoly too, where you could actually be a monopolist or a competitor. So you got

to choose which I thought was interesting. And Uh, if you chose the competitor, you charge lower rents and you can improve property at any time. But if you're a monopolist, you have to own at least two properties before in a group before building houses in charge a lot higher rents. So I think you're like playing against the two systems within the same game. That's really interesting. Yeah, I'm gonna I might grab one of these and see what it's like.

Maybe tell everybody's German, you got anything else? I got nothing else. I do the longest Monopoly game of all time seventy days. I played a game of risk that seemed like it lasted that long once. It may have it didn't last so long, but lasted a weekend. Okay, um, and Monopoly. I don't have the patience for that. I'll just give up. I'll take my cafe cash and go home your horde of it. Yeah, you're like, oh, just

saved all this money, that's right, and I own the utilities. Uh. If you want to learn more about Monopoly, including how to play, if you don't like house rules but you also don't feel like looking at the official rule book, you can just go on the house stuff works and check out the rules that is in this article to type monopoly in the search bar at house touff Works dot com. And since as I searched bar, it's time for chuck Facebook questions. Uh so, people, this is what

we you. Sometimes when we don't have a listener mail prepared, we will go on Facebook asked for questions, and then over the course of a couple of episodes, we will read those out in rapid fire h like fashion. We don't do anything in rapid fire. I couldn't even explain rapid fire fashion in rapid fire. All right, So I'm gonna start this off with Louise. Benjamin says, with as many shows as he recorded, how many would you like to go back and redo? Um, just a small handful.

I would say that. I was literally kind of like, I'm really disappointed with that. Yeah, you're a little harder honest than I am. Though. What's weird is like any time I do say like that was terrible, You're like, yeah, it wasn't bad, and I'll go back and listen. I'll be like, it was way better than I thought. That's what Jerry says when you leave the room. She says, they're always better than anything's Oh really, I didn't realize Jerry talked about me when I wasn't here or spoke

at all when I wasn't around. She was not allowed. All right, you got one. I do. Um. Let's see, do either of us have a preference as to what type of vacuum clean or you use? That's from Taylor Gene Warner, with the most pedestrian question anyone's ever asked. Uh not if you were into vacuuming, my friend, very important. I love vacuuming. I have an electro Luxe canister vacuum. Oh really, I call it LuxI and Emily is not

allowed to operate it. Wow. Yeah? Uh you mean? And I have a Dyson when the little not the big one, Yeah, one of the smaller ones. Yeah, the yellow ball. Uh just a regular upright back? Yeah yeah. I got on the canister thing years ago. I love him. Yeah. I don't know why this thing took Like, you know, they they're like it never loses suction, it's very powerful or whatever. I accidentally rolled over the cord to charge my phone. It sucked the rubber off of the cord. Wo Yeah,

I had to put electrical tape back on. It does suck. All right, that's some buzz marketing. Joseph Campbell, what is your advice on how to have a successful marriage? Joseph Campbell asked us the question. Yeah, wow, you should know this question or answer. Uh, Mary, Mary, your friend's my biggest piece of advice. That's a good one because if you don't like your spouse, then you can't love your spouse. Yeah, marry the person you want to hang out with the most.

You should write a self help book. The end, I have another one for you, Chuck. Yes. Bethany Jackson asks, are you ever going to get another pet goat? No? Out? Well, never say never. Yeah, one day I will when I retire, like to the country, I would love another goat because the best that answers that. Josh kry Obermac says, what is your favorite Simpsons episode? Oh, that's a tough one, but I'm gonna have to go with the old standby

of Mr Sparkle. I'm gonna go with Montaeel. That's a good one too, or any of the Halloween like one through ten or so, those are just great. Um Robert Browning Justice League or Avengers. I don't know what that means. Really, Yeah, you do. As a kid, I was Justice League that was way more into that. But here's an adult like that Avengers movie is great. I'm into that. Justice League is d C. Yeah, Superman definitely Batman. Yeah, although I like them the super Friends. That was all Justice League,

wasn't it. Uh Yeah, okay, Well I have a coherent answer. Then for live action animation, not live action, but for animation, I prefer Justice League. For comic books, I preferred um Avengers Marvel Well in the new movie. Uh, they're doing the Superman Batman movie and then a full on Justice League movie is just leading up to that. So we'll see jury's out yea on motion pictures. But yeah, it's gonna be hard to talk the Avengers movie that was

pretty not motion pictures cartoon only. No, no, no, I'm talking about the new movies that are coming out soon. I got you. Yeah. Uh. Billy Schultz says, were they're rejected titles for the podcast before you landed on stuff you should know? Since you named it, I think you should answer. Uh. I came up with a bunch of ideas. One of them was McNeil Lair News Hour if that was already taken. But stuff you should know is in the original list of ideas what Terminator two? Judgment Day

that was one. All right, get your next you want me go next? Yeah? Um, let's see. Oh this is a good one. Christopher mark Ree says, which of the two are your favorite person for promoting science? Bill Nye or Neil deGrasse Tyson A good one, man. They're both so great, I say, and d T Yeah yeah, Cosmos is awesome. It is awesome. He also, um, is totally comfortable like rocking a shirt. I'm buttoned at the top two Like, he's like the Billy d Williams Lando Tyson Yeah,

uh yeah. And he was on our TV shows, which is really nice. You kind of have to go with him, all right. Naomi Hartman Garham. Oh, this is from her son Jackson, age nine. What was your favorite book when you were kids? My favorite book when I was a kid was like around your age or younger, was The Great Christmas Kidnapping Caper. It's about a bunch of mice in New York that moved into Macy's during Christmas time and uh, Santa is kidnapped and they sold the case. Wow,

it was a great, great book. What was they called the Great Christmas Kidnapping Caper. And it wasn't like a little kid's book. I mean it was my first novel. It was long, long form. That was your favorite book when you're a kid? Yep. My favorite book when I was a little kid was a Christmas book. I think it was a Golden book called something like a Visit to Santa's Workshop or something. Yeah, oh my gosh, it

was so cute. And then, uh, strangely, the first series of novels that I ever loved were Ramona Quimby books. Oh really, man, I used to eat those up and I would take flak too at school. I didn't care. I love those books. Yeah. I loved Encyclopedia Brown. Oh yeah, he was good. And then you know, when I was younger, younger, you can't do better than Dr Susan chelf Silverstein, stuff like that, the classics. Um, I've got one, all right,

go ahead. Uh if this is from Alejandro Sandy, So you could live in any era of history, which time would you live in? Why? That's always so hard. I'm going back to what I said before me you me cubawies. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna say New York and like, I don't know, maybe the nineteen thirties that'd be pretty fun cool. That's a drinking and dancing Yeah, well that's Cuba in the twenties too. Yeah, exactly, you just had the Latin flavor.

Uh Kevin Kinzie? Which pickled thing? Do you prefer most eggs, cucumbers, peppers, or cauliflower or anything else? I don't eat pickled things, So that's you. I I love pickled everything. It's so good for you too. Oh really? Oh yeah, it helps you digest bats a lot more easily. Um, it's just really healthy, like eating pickled stuff. You don't like pickles, don't? Um? I have one more ala Aslin Bridel boy. There's some weird names on Facebook. How do I make a ten

year old more responsible? Did you're getting all the heavy questions like secret to successful marriage? How do you make your kid good? I think you know you gotta get put them to work, make them make or get them a pet. You make them responsible for something and that they're interested in. It would be my advice. I agree with both of your pieces of advice. Marry the person that you want to spend time with you and get your kid at Hamster yes, put him to work. Charge money.

You got any more? Yeah? I got too many more? Pick one? Okay are you ready? Yes? The one that I pick is as follows uh from Mike Reels, Arnie or Stallone. It depends on the year. I'm gonna have to say I would go Schwarzenegger. Yeah, eighties Schwartzenegger nowadays who cares no. But if we're like taking the time work back to the eighties, I was Conan the Barbarian, the original terminator to all deal total recall. Yeah, that's all pretty great. Yeah. Um, I'm a huge first Blood

fan and Rocky fan. Yeah, this was tough not to go with Stallone, although he made some really bad movies, um like Tango Assassin, Tighten Tango in Cash and uh the Dolly parton one about when he's a country singer. Oh, Ryan Stone, Ryan Stone, Um Obra Like wait, wait, wait, those are awful movies. What what you didn't like Cobra? How did you? Yes? Huh not for me? Must have been the age difference. Yeah, so I'm gonna go Arnie too. Okay,

how about that? There you go. Uh. If you want to ask Chuck or me questions, you can go onto Facebook. Anytime at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast. That's our Twitter handle. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com uh and, as always, join us at home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com. Stuff you Should Know is

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